


The Longshoreman

by Virginias_Wolf



Category: Breaking Bad, El Camino - Fandom
Genre: Alaska, Angst, Gen, Poetry, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 15:27:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28976637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Virginias_Wolf/pseuds/Virginias_Wolf
Summary: Imagines life for Jesse Pinkman years after the events of El Camino. With apologies to Walt Whitman.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 16





	1. "On Journeys through the States We Start"

**Author's Note:**

> This just so happened to come out in a prose/poem format. I don't write fanfic very often, as I have my own "original" projects in the works (what is original? It all draws from the work of others in some form or other), but watching El Camino again inspired this work. Rather than try and tweak it so the origins aren't apparent, I'd rather contribute this to the fandom :)  
> I'm posting each section of the poem separately, as it can be a lot to take in all together, and they sort of function as short "chapters" anyway. Enjoy!

The last frontier lies north, of course -where a man can get lost in a forest of pines, or else vanish up a glacial mountain or plunge into the dark grey sea, though for centuries, with gradual haste, men are felling the trees and melting the glaciers, and constantly devising plans to subdue the sea, that one last resistant entity.

The longshoreman had, til his trip up north to Haines, never seen the sea but for a few trips in childhood to the California coast, a place claimed for gold and from Mexico over a century and a half ago.

He arrived in winter, and the glare of the sun turned the harbor white-bright, the ripples still, the cold seizing his limbs like chains.

He looks upon the harbor every day - a natural part of his union-job duty - awaiting the tankers and boats laden with shipping containers to appear on the horizon as they glide along the still waters like skates on ice.

Off-duty, too, he ventures out from home and takes a walk among the pines - always green, no matter the season -until the town, the port, the harbor disappear, and all he can see are the white-capped mountains beyond and opaque waters below.

Too often he stands still, with the toes of his boots peeking over the edge of the cliff or pier, his reflection murky, marred, vanishing into the gray with the littlest hint of cloud.

He is alive, his body is sound, but he is alone. His mind isn’t well.


	2. “Unheard by sharpest ear, unform'd in clearest eye or cunningest mind”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title comes from Walt Whitman's poem "A Riddle Song."

Of course he goes with the guys for a beer or two once his shift is over. He’s teased for not having a TV and for using a flip-phone, for reading The Brothers Karamazov as long as the author took to write it.

But the longshoreman is calm, and kind, taking all these gentle jests in stride. He shrugs, laughs, flings back a zinger joining in the brotherly banter.

They made a movie about him, but nobody who knows the longshoreman knows.  
The longshoreman goes by another name now, his old name reported dead long ago, buried in some unmarked grave in the desert outside Tijuana or Durango.

The guys are fascinated by crime, criminal psychology most of all - “how can someone do all that and live with himself, sleep with his wife right there next to him and get up in the morning to do it all again?”

All these guys have done is drink and drive, smoke a little weed, try a few shrooms, or take back a little of what they felt owed while on shift at a former job.

The longshoreman stays silent, lips stiff, glass gripped with ironclad hands, hoping this talk isn’t one of those asking for opinions from all.  
But alas, heads tilt to him, silence settles at the table.

To come clean, he must muck up an imaginary record - “Busted for weed, driving under the influence when I was just a dumbshit kid, you know” -  
He wipes his hands on his jeans as if beer, or spit, or blood was there.

The longshoreman excuses himself when talk turns back to that Hollywood tale of cartels and kingpins, the sensational dual of drugs and violence (not so much sex, this is PG-13) - he makes up his own story of somewhere to be the next morning.

In his car, the longshoreman breathes in and breathes out like those meditation tapes say, letting the cold night air suck the heat from his fingers and tears warm his cheeks. He senses the scars on his back crawling like caterpillars beneath his skin.


	3. "Not from successful love alone"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short and bittersweet entry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is quoted from Walt Whitman's "Halcyon Days"

The longshoreman loves from a distance - the safest way to love, so far. 

The affairs start virtual, when he can more easily insert his old, dead self within the new, the charm flipped on, no gaze to lock with and no scars to see. He takes long weekend trips away and returns refreshed, revived, renewed, only to drop her like a cell phone call on a remote highway.

All he can recall after the fact, more than faces or names, is the heat of her body, the fragile security of her presence beneath the blankets, pushing back the lurking fear that, any moment now, there will be a knock on her door.

On the drives back home, alone, he thinks of that time before, when warmth came from the desert sun and coolness from her skin, and he felt no need to look behind him.

He keeps to the speed limit, sober as Sunday morning, but sometimes his grip on the wheel wavers and he glides over the dividing line, closing his eyes, letting this machine carry him where it may -

Then a harm awakens him and his too-strong survival instinct kicks in, correcting course to keep to his lane.


	4. "O man of slack faith...only aware today of compact, all-diffused truth"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is not a religious awakening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is quoted from Whitman's "All is Truth"

The longshoreman was never a reader, but internet connection is bad, his patience for learning guitar on thin ice, and those violent video games no longer playable - so, finally, he picked up a book as a new balm for boredom.

He’s made his way through American classics - Beloved, Mockingbird, Gatsby, Grapes of Wrath - all those books he’d hated in school, now he suddenly can understand, as if he flipped on a light that illuminates a hidden room.

Then he sampled a few Russian classics, dropping most halfway through - War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, the short stories of Chekov - as these were a struggle for sure: dense language, 19th-century realities, and the veil of translation through it all.

Yet, better to struggle through this, he figured, than those niggling feelings that any day now, behind that car, or just around the corner, there would be a man calling his dead name.

In Alaska, the summer daylight stretches into his windows until late into the so-called night, allowing for marathon reading sessions after a day at the docks or hiking the forest trails, with the scent of pine fresh in his breath.

These are among the less lonesome nights, with a paper-bound companion beside him, a record spinning softly to shoo away the silence and imagined sounds of footfalls.


	5. "But now obey thy cherish'd, secret wish"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: Suicide (not really a spoiler if you've read this far - but keep in mind there are still 2 more parts to go)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quote is from Whitman's "Now finale to the shore"

Sometimes, the longshoreman takes a boat out into the bay, a sketchbook wrapped in protective plastic among his supplies. He hasn’t drawn anything but doodles in years, yet the quiet natural beauty makes his fingers ache to take it down, somehow.

He stops the boat at a tranquil shore, well-poised to sketch a postcard-perfect view. When he stops sketching and looks down at his work, he sees instead bald desert mountains and a sandy sea. He can feel the heat from the page, smell the charcoal burning.

He turns the pages into feed for fire. His artistic trips are disguised as failed fishing endeavors when the guys have to ask.

It is July when he is drawn further out of the bay, the air smelling of salt and sea life, and he ventures out in his boat to get closer to the sea - the real sea, which sometimes churns with fury and grants small boats little mercy.

The sounds of the State Fair - the sounds of laughter, of life, the sounds of not knowing - fade into a savage silence. He guides the boat down into the channel, leaving Haines far behind, only forest and mountain on either side. 

Haines had gone by another name - Deishu, the end of the trail - until the settlers came. Now, the longshoreman searches for the end of his, motoring with earnest to the wild open waters.

The way feels forever, the scenery barely budging, the water still calm and steady - and the longshoreman drops his patience. He cuts the motor, sitting at the edge of his boat as he rocks back and forth against the waves, screaming at the indomitable depths to claim him.

But the water did not relent in its insistence that he, who had taken so many lives compared to the infinite proportions of its body, he would need to be the one to tip the boat and take his own.

The sky is gray and the water, too, reflecting only shadows, so the longshoreman cannot see how far below he can go. He peeks over the edge, inching ever closer to the surface, the thought of no more pain, no more memories, soothing in itself. He feels the boat dip with his weight, and instinct yanks himself back to avoid the tipping point.

The longshoreman retreats from the edge, curling into himself as his body burns from his unhealed wounds, from his cowardly clutch to life. The gentle waters rock him, allowing the boat to drift until he depletes his well of torment and turns the boat back toward Haines.

Later, he finds his friends at the fair, grimacing with shame but showing the smile of relief.


	6. "O living always, always dying"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another short one before the final entry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quote comes from the poem by Whitman

The days of a longshoreman are long and, between the frenzy of loading and unloading, checking and double-checking, they’re sometimes idle, with much too much time to think and plenty of places to hide.

His hands twitch, wishing to build but only tending to break - projects, people, prospects - all were damaged in his wake. 

He has spent these last few years with a mind sharp and clear, absorbing new words and turns of phrase, doubting all the choices he ever made.

\--Should’ve been a carpenter, should’ve been a fisherman, should’ve gone up further north, should’ve been in prison.

He watches the cranes at work on the docks, moving shipping containers color-coded like Tetris blocks, and a thought flickers past, quick as a sparrow. He grasps it like a greedy cat:

“This is what life is: Watching the blocks stack, drifting through nothing - clocking in and out to survive, until you find the will to die.”


	7. "The genius old poets ... as to me directing like flame"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final installment. Quote comes from Whitman's "As I ponder'd in silence".

The longshoreman’s thoughts - formerly swirls of vapor and a few cloudbursts of emotion - begin to take shape, sometimes into the forms of objects in the world, and other times of pictures, of words.

Unlike his former formless moods, these thoughts entangled and grew to proportions so large they couldn’t stay contained in the in-finite interior of his brain.

The longshoreman begins to write with names and places changed and reality exaggerated - sometimes words are not enough, or they just don’t sound right, and so images in themselves will do.

He buys notebooks, paper, pen and ink, things he never thought he’d ever need again. His hand moves freely once the first thought triggers the motion, and he is no longer in his small wooden home with not even a dog to keep him company, but there, in the desert oasis, where another person used to live.

The sessions end with a gasp like coming up for air after a swim across the bay. He sleeps easily, drained, needing to fill the well again.

He sees vibrant color everywhere now, even in the gray skies and reflected water, in the battered steel of ships and industrial containers, and in his fellows’ rosy faces when they say hello. He feels the blood flowing through his body, the chill of the morning air tickles his fingers, his stride straightens, lengthens, as he walks.

He greets his fellows with a smile, shakes their hands the brotherly way. Alone, he thinks only of going home to create again, that perhaps in the end, he can still bring something worthy into this world.

They say the last frontier is below the sea, or else the endless expanse of space. It’s all about the glory and the guts, the natural world known, subdued by the power of men.

But the longshoreman found where we’re really meant to be - exploring the last frontier means to mine the depth of mind and memory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Hope you've enjoyed it. I originally thought of these as poems but perhaps in the end they're more like a series of flash-stories with more attention paid to a poetic voice and character than plot. It's fun to write things that are difficult to classify. My own well has run dry on this particular concept, but I offer it to the fandom for enjoyment and inspiration. :)


End file.
